Start of Something Good
by swaggyzebraTW
Summary: It's New Year's Eve, and Augustus Waters and Hazel are together, spending the occasion with snacks and video games and each other. They share a kiss as the ball drops, as many people do, but it makes Hazel think about everything in her life, both important and unimportant. Fluffy, Hazel/Augustus, and T. Slightly OOC.


**AN: Whooo! I've never written for this fandom before, and I must say, I just read the book for the first time, and I loved it. (I only cried twice, which my friend said was an achievement. I don't think so, but whatever. It was worth it.) Hope you enjoy this, and since I started writing this only ten minutes before New Years, I am only posting this today. Sorry, but I hope you like this anyway. **

**Disclaimer: This is slightly OOC, maybe a little AU, but the characters belong to Mr. Green and his people. **

I inhaled through the small plastic nubs that were inserted in my nostrils, taking in the slightly masked scent of what I could only call boy and sweat and body odor. But, although this scent sounds absolutely revolting in the way that I am describing it, I didn't mind the scent. Why? Because it had an underlying hint of musty novels and stale orange scented cologne. It was these things that reminded me of none other than my boyfriend, Augustus Waters.

And on this fine night, I was in his basement, preparing for what would probably go down as my best New Year's Eve. A great evening of "Deception" and other violent video games was ahead of me, along with a large variety that I could vomit up minutes after me eating it.

But it was _okay, _because I was doing it all with Gus. Even though we were both sick—him much worse off than me, but I knew that all of our troubles could be shoved aside for the night. We could even laugh about what could happen to us within the New Year, and make fun of some of the choices we had made within the past few months of us knowing each other.

For the next few hours, there would be no thoughts of our deaths. There would be no worrying about how much longer Augustus Waters had left to live. It would be just me and him, eating and playing and laughing and drinking a bunch of booze that we had taken from our unknowing parents.

He came out of the bathroom, in his pajamas, dancing the best he could with his G-tube. "You ready to partyyyy, Hazel Grace?"

I couldn't help but giggle at his antics, and sing along to the Swedish techno beat that was pounding through his crappy speakers. Gus joined in mid-verse, matching my own crappy singing with his own equally terrible rendition of the song. Had I been an onlooker witnessing the moment, I probably would have laughed uncontrollably, but it felt joyous to be the one enjoying the moment first-hand, and I wouldn't have rather been anywhere else.

"Gotta just love how these lyrics are so pointless and shitty that they make little to no sense!" Augustus shouted to me over the music.

I couldn't help but agree with him, as the rapper singing the song had to have used the words 'balls' and 'ass' over a hundred times by now. Doing the math, that would meant that he had said the words almost three times a line so far, and the song wasn't even over yet.

But, even as the rest of the song passed, I found myself dancing with Augustus like there just simply wasn't a tomorrow. Well, I guess that was a poor choice of words because they were more true than I had intended, but it was true. We were dancing so hideously and comically, and even though I had begun to felt my lungs crumple and complain of the effort, I kept moving.

No, we were not couples dancing, or ballroom dancing. You probably couldn't even call our dance a dance, it was simply that bad. My arms were swinging wildly to no particular rhythm, and Gus' legs were kicking and hopping the best he could with his prosthetic. It would probably be a slightly pitiful sight, watching me dragging around my oxygen cart and seeing Augustus Waters try his best not to fall over, but we were having fun, and that was all that mattered.

After another ten minutes or so, we both wordlessly agreed that we could dance no more. It would probably result in us dying if we continued, and 'Deception" had already popped up on the TV screen.

"How many players, one or two?" The game voice asked, just as we both grabbed our controllers.

"Two." I answered, beating Gus to it.

"Player one, make yourself known." It commanded, and Gus did just that.

"Player two, make yourself known." The monotone voice continued, and I replied with, "I am player two, who happens to be much better than player one."

"Ouch, you wish that was true." Gus said, putting a hand on his chest as he feigned hurt and caught his breath some more.

As time ticked by, we never once made it to the cave that Isaac and I had reached. I knew this was solely because Gus had but one goal in this game, and that was to save as many of the fictitious bystanders as possible. As a result, he frequently committed suicide, and claimed that it would save the people precious time, which they could use to acquire more precious time.

After we 'heroically' ate our enemies bullets for the umpteenth time, my thumbs began to ache, and I was growing annoyed with the voiceover that controlled the game. It still refused to respond to all of my commands involving humping, which Gus got a good laugh at.

Looking to the clock on the wall, I saw that it was now only ten more minutes until New Years, and decided that it was time to retire from the video game, at least for a while.

"Ten minutes 'till midnight." I relayed to Augustus, who had lazily sprawled himself across the entire couch; his legs resting over my thighs.

He nodded. "Does that mean we should change the channel to the one that has the coverage of 'New Year's Rockin' Eve?'"

"Probably." I said, snatching the remote from his grasp.

Flicking at the stations, I scrolled past about ten to finally settle on CBS' channel, which was life in Times Square, and happened to be watching the latest drug-driven superstar: Miley Cyrus.

Although I had been pretty out of it with my illness and all, I did know that Miley was no longer the Disney star that she used to be. While I was on my laptop one day, I even looked at one of her newest music videos, which just so happened to feature her naked on a swinging construction ball. I hadn't been able to suffer through more than half the video before I clicked away, but it was still enough to see that she was no longer the beloved 'Hannah Montana."

"She must have fallen off the cliff of sanity." Gus commented.

"Maybe it's just a new trend…" I began, the words barely sounding believable even to my own ears.

"I came in like a wrecking ball!" The star sang, her voice not half bad considering she was probably freezing in the outfit, or lack there of, she was wearing.

"How do you come in like a wrecking ball?" Gus pondered, entering a long train of thought regarding it.

Shaking my head, I couldn't stifle a laugh. "You're putting too much thought into a bubble-gum pop lyric."

He ignored me. "Do you enter a room swinging from a rope or something?"

Nope. "Maybe you enter a room like Miley Cyrus; naked and swinging from a large metallic ball."

"But then you wouldn't be _like_ a wrecking ball, you'd simply be _on_ a wrecking ball."

I didn't respond, as Miley Cyrus had left the stage, and the host person was counting down the seconds until the great ball fell from the sky. The countdown was down to just thirty seconds, and I wondered what Gus and I would do once the clock hit twelve.

Augustus seemed to have it all planned out. "I've never had a New Year's kiss before. This is going to be nice."

We had kissed many times before, but I couldn't help but get a little nervous as the people chanted, "ten, nine, eight…" My mouth tasted a little stale, like the chips I had consumed just a few hours before, and I wondered if Gus would notice. Part of me wondered if Gus would care.

I had no further time to ponder it, as my boyfriend's strong hands grasped a hold around my face, and pulled me in for a kiss. Cheers erupted from the television set in front of us, making me know that it was in fact the start of 2014.

Surprisingly enough, there was no tongue involved in our kiss, and I couldn't taste Gus that much, so I figured he couldn't taste my stale corn chips, and all of my qualms went away. My lips moved against his, and, eventually, all noise subsided from around us.

When we both broke apart, gasping for air, I was smiling widely. "Okay?" I asked him, knowing it was our 'always', and that I foolishly wanted him to say it back for the first time in the New Year.

"Okay." Augustus said, his crooked smile lighting up the room. "In fact, more than okay."

It was then that I didn't think anything about my illness, or his for that matter, and I simply smiled back. I brought my face back to his, and kissed him hard on the lips. Pushing him back gently, I managed to get us to the bed, and he fell under me when his knees backed into the edge of the mattress.

There was still a little awkwardness like our first time as we both dealt with trying to avoid my tubes and his, but it all worked out in the end. I guess it always does. Every story has an ending, even _An Imperial Affliction,_ which ended mid-sentence. I knew that now, and if Gus and I were to pass via a flying asteroid right now, I wouldn't entirely mind. Yes, it would be a bummer to be dead, and I might have wished that the asteroid didn't come and claim the lives of my and my boyfriend, but it would have been an ending.

But our story wasn't about to end. In fact, there was so much more that we could do, and I made it my sole goal to do as much as I could before our ending, before that final asteroid came and struck us will all of its might.

Gus seemed to notice my reverie and asked, "Okay?"

I nodded vigorously, pulling his shirt over his head in the process. "More than okay." I quoted from him earlier before silencing him with my lips, and I knew that it really was okay. Unlike with Isaac and Monica, our promise was real, and would only expire when we did, and if there was an afterlife with unicorns and mansions and clouds, our love would only end after that.

Gus and I would always find our way to be okay. Always.

**AN: Okay, I'm only fourteen, so my writing is, to put it lightly, absolute poop. With that said, reviews mean a lot to me, and if you checked out my profile, you might find something that you like on there. Happy 2014, people.**


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